you know it's cold when your bottle of water crystalizes in your coat pocket

I went skiing yesterday at Camelback in the Poconos, only 2 hour drive away. I've never been to the Poconos, in fact, I think I only vaguely remember that as the resort Baby and her family go to in Dirty Dancing. Ah good times :)

My college classmate, and new neighbor Susan and her friend Alex, both snowboard enthusiasts, and I drove up there and had a great time. It was very very cold -- but I went to Paragon Sports store in the city the day before and bought good long underwear (the sports performance kind with the wick away sweat), and for good measure, I decided to splurge and buy a good ski/cold weather jacket. I now understand why these things cost in the 200, 300, 400 range. Luckily, mine was on sale. When we arrived, it snowed furiously for a little while, big fluffy flakes, then the sun sort of peeked out. It got much sunnier later in the day, but then the wind really picked up.

So, the skiing. Well, the warm weather earlier this week, meant that the resort had to make a lot of extra snow -- most of it was good, but my first run was on an easier slope, and unfortunately, it was ridiculously icey. The intermediate slopes were more fun to run on. And, I didn't realize it at the time, but my boots were looser than they needed to be. Explains why after a few runs, i felt like my left leg ached in a way it shouldn't. So I was smart, took a break, ate, and then went to go to my lesson. I missed the morning lesson by 15 minutes, so no problem, went to the noon, but it turned out that was only for beginners, so I did some more runs down some different slopes, and showed up for the 2:15. The instructor had us try several different drills, focusing on some edging work, working on the bottom half of a turn, trying snowplow. I've been watching the Olympics skiing and snowboarding, so what he was explaining made sense when I thought about what those athletes do. I think I finally grasped what he was getting at towards the end of the lesson, and I left feeling good about what I accomplished, and I can practice more on my own.

Oh, I almost forgot. First run of the morning, some stupid hotdog skiier, on the beginner slope, clipped my skis, and shouted in my ears, startled me and I fell. Of course he didn't stick around to see if I was ok. What an idiot. There was plenty of room to ski around me. That made me so irritated. And then, during my lesson, we were all stopped, and an inexperienced snowboarding plowed right into me. I fell on her, absorbed most of my weight on my left hand. Luckily she went slow but, good grief, a little earlier warning and I could've taken off and moved out of the way. I'm ok, she's ok, so alls well that ends well.

I was pretty tired last night, but felt good about the day. I had a great time. Of course, I watched some more of the Olympics skiing last night and went to bed, with heating pads to make sure I didn't stiffen up. It was actually hard to fall asleep, every time I closed my eyes, i started visualizing skiing. It's sort of like when you go sailing for a day, and you come home, the bed feels like rocking. I can't wait to go skiing again -- it was crowded but we did pick the busiest weekend of the year. I can't wait for Lake Tahoe next month!